Page 23 of The Jock
Everyone is counting on you.
It would shatter the team if they found out like that. Hell, it would shatter the team if they found out at all. He’d kept this from everyone his whole life, kept it from the guys he’d sweated and bled with, who he’d given all of himself to, day in and day out. Guys who’d traveled this path with him and were counting on him to help bring them the last few yards. Into the end zone. To glory.
And what would happen to Justin if Wes was outed? If he was named as the guy Wes loved? What would happen to his life? He imagined the jeers, the slurs, the hate. Hell, the online attacks he got when he fumbled a pass were brutal enough. What if Wes was outed? What if the world found out that what he wanted most wasn’t to catch that shovel pass and make a breakaway for the end zone or to snatch that fade from Colton in the back corner of the end zone and rack up another touchdown on the scoreboard, but that he wanted Justin? He wanted to be on his knees, Justin’s cock in his mouth, Justin’s hands gripping his skull? To be balls deep in Justin, kissing him until his toes curled, until Justin’s ankles crossed behind his back and Wes ran his palm down Justin’s smooth thigh, gripped his ass as he thrust in, and in, and in?
Wes could take the heat, the hate. Probably. Hopefully. He already knew the blistering tirades he got from the fumbles and the dropped passes, the missed downs, and he could extrapolate, in a fuzzy way, what that would sound like, look like, if the shouts and curses and death threats, the excoriations to choke on his own jock, drive himself off a bridge, quit the game and wrap his lips around his tailpipe were focused, instead, on how he wasn’t a man, he was a faggot, he deserved to die—
Again, he hurled, grabbing the garbage can and curling around it, his stomach screaming.
Once, when Wes was still in high school, a fan had stalked one of the university’s quarterbacks. He’d staked out the quarterback’s truck at the stadium and waited for him after practice, enraged at how he’d thrown two interceptions in the last game, had blown the lead in the third quarter. The game had been lost to his most hated team, the alma mater of his buddy, who went on to beat him in that week’s betting pool.
The fan got up in the quarterback’s face, screaming, bellowing, losing his fucking mind. The offensive line came out of the stadium a few minutes behind the quarterback, just in time to see the knife flash.
By the time the linemen got there, the quarterback was on the ground with two punctured lungs and an eviscerated belly bleeding all over the pavement, and his attacker was on the run. Three linemen turned the attacker into a smear on the asphalt, and the police nearly had to shovel his broken body into the ambulance when they finally arrived.
When the quarterback had doubled over, trying to protect himself, the blade had slid into his back and nicked his spine. Paralyzed him from the waist down. All that, because someone didn’t like the passes he’d thrown. Because he’d lost fifty bucks on a bet over beer and chicken wings.
What if someone came after Justin? What if Wes loving Justin put Justin’s life at risk?
They will turn your life upside down. Are you ready?
He might be able to say yes, but was it fair to Justin to turnhislife upside down—or worse? Subject him to the capricious whims of football fans, the wild swings of poisonous love and vitriol? Subject him to violence?
What would happen to the man he loved?
Was he willing to risk Justin’s life to find out?
God, how selfish was he, even considering it? No,never. He could never, ever risk Justin’s life, not for football. Hell, he should quit today, march back into Coach’s office and tell him thanks but no thanks, he could take the captaincy and shove it, Wes was cleaning out his locker and going home. He wasn’t going to play anymore, because he wasn’t going to take the risk of the world finding out that—
That he loved Justin.
Swans fluttered on the disquiet waters of his soul, cast ripples across the hollows of his heart.What price are you willing to pay for your love?If he didn’t play football, his scholarship was gone. If his scholarship was gone, he wouldn’t even have enough money to fill up his gas tank to drive back to West Texas. He’d be homeless before the day was over, the money in his pocket—about four dollars and three euros—all he had to his name. And a credit card bill for two grand looming, thanks to Paris and the best date he’d ever been on.
He’d have nothing. Less than nothing. No future. No hope. Everything he’d worked for since he was six years old, gone.
Was three perfect weeks with the man of his dreams enough to outweigh the length and breadth of his lifelong goals? Did loving Justin replace the tears in his dad’s eyes when he opened his scholarship letter? His mama had died knowing that when he graduated, football would take him out of their little town, bring him to the wide world, open all his doors. Did loving one man wipe away everyone’s hopes for him?
What did he want?
He was made to love the white swan.
Justin. He wanted Justin.
But he couldn’t. He couldn’t. Not like this. Not with the risks. Not with reporters and NFL scouts and obsessed stalkers and wheelbarrows full of toxic hate. Not with everything, every single thing in his life, on the line.
You can bring all these boys with you, all the way to glory.
Wes squeezed his hands into fists and dug his forehead against the metal rim of the garbage can. Glory had never been what he wanted. He wanted a future. He wanted to see his dad smile as Wes walked across that stage and accepted his college diploma. He wanted to love a man and be loved in return.
He couldn’t have what he wanted. Not in this lifetime, it seemed. His shoulders were only large enough to carry everyone else’s dreams, not his own. Not in his broken world.
You can have everything you ever dreamed of.
No, he couldn’t. Maybe everyone else could. Maybe everyone else could realize their dreams of the NFL, could reach for those elusive stars and grab the future, but Wes had already had a taste of his dreams come true. He’d already held everything he’d ever wanted in his two hands.
Maybe Paris was all he’d ever have. Maybe that was it. One moment in time. One study abroad. One summer love.
Now he had to return to reality. Obligations. Responsibilities. Ties that bound him to others, to something bigger than the cries of his heart. The hunger of his soul.
